Pathway to Japanese Literature

“You want to hear about my foreign travels?”

"Oh dear... It was so long ago I've clean forgotten all about it." "I'd rather you spared me the trouble... Just some tale 'bout me gettin' so startled and flustered I barely escaped with my life, I'm afraid..."

...Hmm... That story. "When you say 'that story'...?" "Hmm..." "The story of how I nearly became sausage because the world's round..."

Whoa. Man, was I shocked. “Who did you hear it from?” “Hmm...” “From that gardener Roku... What a mess...” “Blabbin’ some nonsense secret… That guy’s big mouth’s beyond control once it starts…” "That damn guy heard it from his dead old man... And I never told a soul about it..." “Hmm... Hmm.” “Well now, this here’s quite the feast, I must say.” “To think I could share a drink with the master like this—gazing at the garden my comrades slaved over from the banquet hall I built with my own hands—well, that’s the pinnacle of a craftsman’s fulfillment, I must say.” “Oh! This here’s Madam’s pouring for me… Please don’t trouble yourself… I’ll just help myself.” “The world seemed far too round—dizzyingly so.” “Heh heh heh.” “Oops... It’s spilling, spilling!”

So then—starting from that grinding incident—shall I try telling you from the very beginning how I came to understand why this world’s so damn round…? That grinding sound—it’s from a machine that mixes up humans with pigs and dogs to make sausages… Hmm. It still exists in America. The Master knows of it… heh heh… It’s the tale of how I came within a hair’s breadth of ending up in that grinder myself—not exactly a pleasant tale, I’m afraid. In America, when they kill someone, they make ’em into sausages to cover their tracks—or so they say. Even now when I remember it, I shudder. This ain’t the sort of tale you’d want with your sake—truth be told, I’d rather beg your pardon right here and now…

“Huh.” “Madam says she adores such stories… I’m quite overwhelmed, I must say.” As you listen to such tales, the corners of your eyes lift up till you naturally become a beauty… Some newfangled beauty technique… Whoa. Things took a terrible turn, I tell you. Now my old lady—long before all this—she went to see that rokurokubi long-necked monster exhibit at Suitengu Shrine, and when she came back, that very night she got herself tormented by nightmares till dawn… there’s no other way to put it. She apparently got worried her own neck might pop right off. ...Kept shrieking “It’s coming off! It’s coming off!” with that damnable voice in the dead of night... Crazy fool—did she think she was some prize beauty worth losing her head over?... So I gave her one good smack on the back, and finally she came to her senses. That apparently didn’t sit right… She ended up never becoming a beauty her whole life—what a waste, I tell you. Honestly. Heh heh heh. The world sure does change when it changes, I tell you.

When I was twenty-seven—that’d be about thirty years back now… A story from the New Year of Meiji 30-something, I tell you. Back then, I was working for the Taiwan Government-General, but come spring through summer that year, talk started up about how the greatest World’s Fair was set to begin in this place called St. Louis in America—so from Japanese Taiwan, they came up with this idea to set up an oolong tea shop there for promotion, I tell you. Back then, they were all about foreign this, foreign that—even with something like tea, if it wasn’t made by Westerners, you couldn’t show off properly, and that just galled them… “Try promoting this oolong tea to the Westerners—fragrant as can be, tastier than India’s finest,” said that Civil Administrator Baron at the time, this Baron Gotō Shinpei fellow... Hmm. That Baron apparently issued the command… As for me, when His Lordship said, “How about you go build a big Taiwanese-style café at this exposition?”—well, I was downright flabbergasted, I tell you.

Not to boast, but I was just a rough carpenter fresh out of grade school... sparrows chirping tweet-tweet, crows cawing kaah-kaah. A first-rate Edo wretch who knew nothing of the world beyond what some chirp-chatter kindergarten teacher might've taught him—that was me. If you went past Hakone, even Japanese wouldn't get understood no more, so foreign travels? Never crossed my mind once. Even when I sailed to Taiwan to build them Government-General offices, watching that ship charge ahead across endless seas with no land in sight gave me this queer feeling, see. When I asked Engineer Fujimura—the fellow leading us—he just laughed me off.

“You needn’t fret—the Earth’s round, after all.” “However far you wander, you’ll surely return to Japan in the end.” “Hmm… Anyone actually seen it?” “Knowing don’t require seeing.” “What sort of Japanese man lacks backbone like you?…” “Consider those Amakusa women—can’t tell if the world’s round or square, yet straddle the globe, playing all races like puppets, scrounging coin to send home to their Japanese parents.” “Mighty impressive, that.” “Not a corner of this earth lacks Amakusa women, I tell you.”

“Huh… So that’s how it is…” “So that’s how it works, huh?”

“Exactly right.” “You’ll understand once you travel abroad.” “Huh... So there’s really that many Amakusa women out there?” “I don’t know whether there are any or not, but whenever they open a coal mine, gold mine, or rubber forest in some foreign land, Japan’s Amakusa women get there before any machinery.” “Then those Western bastards come sniffing around their skirts, tag along, and start working.” “A town springs up.” “Then railroads get laid—that’s how it goes.” “Whether for good or ill, it’s always our Japanese women who lead the charge—gutsy as hell, I tell you.” “You’ll stumble upon Amakusa girls when you least expect it, mark my words.”

“Huh...” “So what becomes of such women in the end?”

“That matter’s already settled.” “When they truly come to understand the world’s roundness through those experiences, they become proper women—return to Japan and make ordinary marriages.” “Besides… unless they reach that level, no one in Amakusa would want them as brides anyway—can’t be helped.” “Like bringing a globe as part of your bridal trousseau, eh?” “Well, that’s about right.” “That’s why there’s not one spineless woman in Amakusa who goes abroad without grasping the world’s roundness, I tell you.”

I turned red from needless embarrassment, I tell you. Even so, I did manage to feel somewhat reassured, I tell you.

So when I crossed over to America, I was quite composed, I tell you. Among my companions—carpenters and plasterers, including Roku the gardener and his father—there were about fourteen or fifteen of us… Well, I spent my time showing off the seventy-sen globe I’d bought in Keelung to that bunch, lecturing them on how small Japan was and such, I tell you. In the midst of this, when I realized we were spending day after day running across nothing but sea for an awfully long time, it became strange—despite understanding the reasoning, I somehow grew worried. Even today, they say people traveling abroad for the first time often catch some peculiar head-addling illness—I might’ve had a bit of fever myself. Even though there was nothing particularly wrong, I somehow felt like we were all being deceived and exiled to some island. If we were being sent to Sado Island to dig gold mines… such thoughts made whatever I ate taste downright awful. It might’ve been that I’d grown sick of eating that rice curry and stew and croquettes every single day.

Amidst this, a variety show began aboard the ship. Since I ended up doing the setteko dance… they had these flashy yukatas with three-square patterns aboard the ship… this was back when Danjuro was still alive, mind you… and then a red cotton loincloth, plus a surigane drum, taiko drum, shamisen—all properly prepared—which really surprised me. When the day arrived, they set up a stage in the middle deck’s hall—big enough to hold five or six hundred people—where everyone from first-class passengers to us special third-class passengers all packed in together to watch. To kick things off, this flamboyant Western captain burst out and started performing Western magic tricks. It was quite vivid, I tell you, but that was only natural. After that, Japanese people came up and performed Western magic tricks too, but they weren’t particularly impressive. The only area where Made in Japan still doesn’t hold sway is magic tricks, I suppose. In the midst of this, just as I was about to stand up for my setteko dance turn, along came that bastard Roku’s father—the current gardener’s old man. At the time, he was already a bald-headed man with a red nose, but ever since hearing me talk about the world being round, he’d been going out to the deck every single day, tilting his head while surveying the flat sea that stretched around the ship like a phonograph record spinning round and round… And that day too, when we were supposed to pair up for the setteko dance, he came lumbering down from the deck still wearing his gaudy yukata and red loincloth, staring holes into my face as I listened to the opening music, blinking his tiny acorn-like eyes all the while.

“I just can’t wrap my head around it no matter what.” “What don’t you get?” “This logic about the world bein’ round…” “You’re such a fool… Ain’t no matter how much I explain it, you ain’t gettin’ it.” “Weren’t you feelin’ all relieved when you finally got it after crossin’ over to Taiwan?”

“That’s just you.” “I ain’t felt one bit at ease since then.” “It’s just so damn strange, I tell you.” “What’s so strange about that, huh?” “But I’ve thought and thought about it, and I just can’t see... “How in blazes does water pool up like this on somethin’ as round as that globe...?” “On top o’ that, there’s big waves crashin’ too... ain’t there... yeah...” Hearing that, the core of my head throbbed, and I found myself lost in thought. While talkin’ tough, deep down I was still worried, I tell you. Maybe that was the illness’s doin’, but havin’ my weakness laid bare left me reelin’—this dizzyin’, off-kilter feelin’ swirlin’ through my mind. Everything around me started goin’ dark like I was faintin’... and seems I just up an’ collapsed then and there. Weak-willed, that’s me… Though ’course by then, both me an’ Roku’s old man had already caught that queer sickness together—nothin’ to be done about it, I tell you. A right peculiar illness if ever there was one. If it was fits, must’ve been earth fits—but I don’t recall any such thing… Even I thought it mighty strange.

So Roku’s father—who’d caught the same illness—apparently saw me collapse and immediately followed suit by keeling over himself… The moment I thought “This is bad,” the whole world flattened out completely—what a hopeless bastard I was… Thanks to that, the setteko went straight to hell. It’s unclear who started it, but to think someone issued that sinful proclamation of “the world is round” to people who’d always lived on flat land—what a thing to do, I tell you. It was like we’d been snared by some Omoto sect oracle… After that, for about two weeks until we reached America, Roku’s father and I were shut away in the upper deck’s sickroom, moaning and groaning the whole time.

When I heard about it later, the perfectly matched setteko duo had collapsed in a chain. A mismatched setteko performance… became the talk of the whole ship, I tell you… And on top of that, both of us… kept babbling delirious nonsense like “It’s terrible, terrible”… So as a precaution, they drew our blood for testing—and what they found was downright horrifying, I tell you. Traces of infidelity remained abundantly in the blood. I think it was called some poisonous name like "idiot bastard" or such. *Huh.* With that Gonogokken test coming back positive, they decided it was definitely brain syphilis—who knew what we might do next—so we ended up getting locked away, I tell you. And what’s more, the ship’s doctor must’ve been some shoddy, salty bastard. Amidst all this, they apparently figured out the real name of the illness… I tell you.

*Huh.* So that’s what they’re calling this damn illness, I tell you. “So… turns out Roku’s old man’s was called ‘dying in the streets,’ and mine was ‘parrot-piss’… Ain’t a damn joke… *Huh.*” Nostalgia Old Man… So *nostalgia*’s just *homesickness*, I tell you? I found it all rather strange. It’s no laughing matter, I tell you. Both of us had fevers of about eight degrees, I tell you. After returning to Japan and inquiring about it, they said it was some imported neurasthenia… the severe cases being *nostalgia* and the mild ones called *Ohm-shikko*. Fancy foreign illnesses if ever there were such things, I tell you. With me in my flashy yukata and red loincloth, and Nostalgia over there groaning from his Ohm-shikko under that yellow tenugui headband… it was a right mess, I tell you…

Even so, when we landed in America, both of us suddenly became energetic again, I tell you. Upon arriving in St. Louis, we immediately set to work on the framework. We built a Taiwanese-style palace exactly according to the blueprint Engineer Fujimura had drawn up, and it was quite a hit, I tell you. That photo of me and Nostalgia Old Man got published big in the newspaper, I tell you. As for Nostalgia Old Man—that bastard gardener—the Japanese-style garden he’d built in front of the Taiwan Pavilion became such a sensation... that the old fool ended up being declared a descendant of Sesshū himself, leaving me too dumbfounded for words, I tell you. As for me, my situation was even more absurd... Though I may look like this, I’m actually quite particular about hatchets—can’t stand having wood chips scattered about, I tell you. So while I was tapping away at that splendid forty-foot American pine ridgepole I’d been working on from the start, I ended up sending a continuous forty-foot strip of wood shavings flying off—scaring the wits out of the Western engineer who’d been watching, so they say. When that story made headlines across America, the trick boxes I’d crafted aboard the ship to stave off boredom had been completely sold out even before the exposition officially opened. With Mr. Oyuki’s Pii-Pii Morgan coming to buy from Nostalgia Old Man, it was quite the bustling scene, I tell you. Those Westerners sure get impressed by the most trivial things, I tell you. Heh heh heh.

And amidst all this—once that monstrous-looking Taiwan Pavilion with its upturned gabled roof painted red and blue stood completed—the St. Louis Exposition officially commenced! There we were: Nostalgia Old Man and yours truly with our *Ohm-shikko*, dressed up in these ridiculous benshi-style frock coats they’d forced on us, standing at the entrance day after day bellowing out Mr. Fujimura’s English phrases at the top of our lungs!

“JAPAN GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY! FORMOSA OOLONG CHA! ONE CUP TEN CENTS!” “COME IN COME IN!” It’s no laughing matter, I tell you. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what the hell any of it meant… At first, I suspected that mischievous Mr. Fujimura had taught us English phrases like “Right and Left Gentlemen,” but apparently that wasn’t the case at all. The Great Master’s “Abokyaabe soldier.” “Russia’s now, Nakamura daah!” At first, I thought those formulaic English phrases might’ve been some Westerner’s exorcism chant or ritual prayer to the fire god… but turns out they weren’t anything of the sort… When I finally asked about it much later, it was just “Japan Monopoly Bureau Taiwan Oolong Tea—ten sen a cup! Irahai! Irahai!”—useless for warding off evil or curing ailments either way, I tell you.

Of course, had I understood the meaning of this purification chant so early on, my life might've been forfeit. I might've ended up as imported sausage, reborn through Westerners' piss and shit... Bizarre as it sounds, I tell you—human fate's a thing you can never predict what'll come twistin' your way. To be honest, "Wan cup ten sense" and that rice-growing tree were my life's parents...

Anyway, standing there at the Taiwan Pavilion’s entrance bellowing that gibberish at the top of our lungs without understanding a lick of it, Westerners came pouring in one after another. Inside the Taiwan Pavilion, handpicked beauties born in Taiwan gave lectures on oolong tea in fluent English while serving Hassen Bashō senbei—one sheet per serving. Those Westerners would give me and Nostalgia Old Man five or ten cents each time they entered or left. Occasionally, there were those who gave one or five dollars. On the other hand, there were those Jewish-looking fellows who’d turn their noses up without giving a damn thing—all in all, it made for good pocket money, I tell you.

Amidst all this, I came to understand bits of English little by little. "They call water 'wara'... This whole 'wara-wase' nonsense might've just begun then." The ones arriving by boat were Nabegeta. Easy enough to mistake that for those pot-straw-sandals from innkeeper stories. Since women get called 'lady,' I figured men must be 'dely'—but turns out it's 'Zenitoruman,' I tell you. Makes perfect sense when you think about it, but damn if it don't make me want to curse. They call wives 'Mam'... Maybe some pun about 'women being mammon,' but I can't rightly say. "Good morning" was 'Gurumon'—just 'Guru' did the trick too. Like how us Edo boys cut 'Konnichiwa' down to 'Chyaa,' I tell you. "Good evening" came out 'Gurunai.' "I'd love to snap back 'Do whatever ya like!'... Then 'Sayonara' becomes 'Gurubai'... Why these hairy critters gotta gabble all guru-guru-like? Beasts fresh turned human... Though called 'hairy ones' for good reason—arms and legs matted with fur through and through." Even their women's faces bristled with stubble, bodies pimpled like plucked chicken skin—damn things. Get close and they reeked like a zoo—couldn't stand it. Men or women didn't matter—call 'em 'critters' when they tipped us, and they'd beam like fools. Proves they're beasts through and through.

But this here's the tale of how those Western critter bastards did me wrong... When it comes to wicked cunning, us Japanese are no match for beasts at their core, I tell you.

Inside the Taiwan Pavilion where we were drawing crowds, there were six Taiwanese girls serving tea. Those girls’ names have slipped my mind—being thirty years ago now—but they had these greengrocers’ code-like surnames: Fun, Paa, Choki, Pin, Kiri, Geta. All were Taiwan’s finest beauties, every one seventeen or eighteen years old in their budding youth. From the very start came a stern decree: lay a single finger on those women and not only would you forfeit your wages, but Baron-sama himself ordered you’d be abandoned in America. What’s more, Mr. Fujimura made damn sure none of us so much as stepped a toe outside the exposition grounds. In American towns, gangs and thugs were everywhere, committing robberies and kidnappings even in broad daylight. When they spot a timid fellow, they’ll threaten him with pistols and press him into service as an accomplice for major bandits or smuggling—so watch out. Once those bastards set their sights on you, you’d never make it back to Japan alive—that’s what they relentlessly threatened us into believing, I tell you. Looking like mountain wolves struck by Fudō’s paralysis, everyone just stood there with fingers in their mouths, swallowing saliva as they stared at those women.

Pitiful craftsmen who couldn't get women—like canaries that forgot how to sing... Heh. I'm still young at heart even now—back then I was a spirited lad not yet thirty, no blue-eyed celluloid doll I'll have you know—dragged off to some godforsaken backwoods of America where I couldn't understand a word spoken or tell east from west, day after day having to bellow out with a tearful voice while those beauties batted their eyes at me,

“Wan cup ten sense. “COMEEN COMEEN!”

Being forced to do this day in and day out was downright unbearable, I tell you. Nostalgia Old Man and Ohm-shikko’s eyes were bulging so much, we ended up feeling like Nanking fireworks ready to burst any second with pop-pop crackle-crackle, I tell you. Before we knew it—whether pitiful, foolish, or beyond description—we’d ended up perfecting a matched pair of “Formosa oolong cha” chants, I tell you.

But then came a most opportune turn of events. Among those women, the two most capable ones—Miss Pin and Miss Choki—had fallen ill with either nostalgia or bladder troubles, who could say. As a stopgap measure, two new beauties called Chi-chi and Fui-fui, who'd been working at a Chinese restaurant in St. Louis, came to lend a hand. After all, with each girl handling six tables apiece, even one missing would leave us scrambling. Jackpot. This was nothing short of divine providence, I thought, shivering with secret delight. Now then. You follow? With the previous girls, I couldn't have laid a finger on them even if I tried—but these newcomers should pose no such restrictions. And if they counted as two full servings, then we ought to match them—except one of our pair being that bald red-nosed Nostalgia hardly made for fair odds. Between youth and looks by any measure, the grand prize in this lottery should've been mine alone—or so you'd think. "Which morsel to sample first?" I'd pondered while keeping up my innocent act—chanting 'wan cup ten sense' like some protective spell as I observed them for days on end. Wouldn't you know it—both Miss Chi and Miss Fui started batting their lashes my way in unison?

Heh heh... I'm much obliged. Oops... It was spilling, it was spilling!

I must apologize for all these indulgences and selfish romantic boasts, but there's no helping it—this right here marks where the truly dreadful part of the story takes root. After all, I had to lay out the tale properly to keep threads from crossing, else the logic'd become nigh impossible to follow later on. Heh heh... Much obliged. Between those two, this Fui-fui was a willowy lass of seventeen or eighteen with dewy intelligent eyes—though truth be told, she'd apparently been first to start casting glances my way. From her very arrival at the Taiwan Pavilion, she'd been shooting me looks that seemed to beg speech—or so it appeared to these eyes at least. Seems Chi-chi, that other minx, caught wind and thrust her oar in. Heh heh. Exactly so, exactly so. Thus began this tug-of-war over yours truly, heh heh heh. Heh heh. Turned quite the dashing fellow I had... best not stoke those flames. Aah, sweltering sweltering... Nay nay. Can't endure more... Lest my tongue trip itself up... seeing as what follows ties to monstrous happenings, I tell you... Heh.

Now, this Chi-chi person was one hell of a character, I tell you. I later heard she was a mixed-race girl of Chinese and Italian descent—though that one was an absolutely stunning beauty, I tell you. On top of that, six tables were nothing—she could handle twenty or thirty if you brought them, she’d say. She’d make grandiose boasts about handling everything alone, and right from the start, she was hated by her colleagues, I tell you. She was no ordinary woman, I tell you.

Well now. She must’ve been twenty-two or twenty-three despite her rejuvenated appearance—at first glance even cuter than Miss Fui, this girl with matching bangs dangling like Miss Fui’s and large pearls hung from both earlobes. From between her jade-green damask robes peeked Chinese-style undergarments with hems of scorching crimson fluttering about as she deployed those terrifyingly skillful seductive glances—piercing sidelong looks that… well, even someone as composed as me was instantly smitten. Though perhaps “composed” overstates it—truth be told, anyone who crossed paths with that one would’ve been felled by a single glance’s strike, I tell you. From the sidelines, Miss Fui seemed to be flustered and anxious, but once things had come to that point, there was no helping it anymore.

After exchanging a couple of quick smooches right there… Heh… Was that a wink?... My apologies. In America, smooches are more socially acceptable... so in my carelessness, I’d ended up choosing that very approach... When Miss Fui noticed this, she frantically waved at me from across the tables, but by then I was too enthralled to pay any mind, I tell you. But the sheer terror of Miss Chi’s glare when she whirled around to look at Miss Fui in that moment remains seared into my very bones to this day. When that glare struck Miss Fui, she turned deathly pale and tottered on the verge of collapse, I tell you. It was only much later that I too came to understand the terrifying meaning behind Miss Chi’s glare and trembled all over, I tell you.

It was that night. I quietly rose in the Taiwan Pavilion’s basement so as not to rouse Nostalgia Old Man sleeping beside me, then slipped clean out of the pavilion. Then just as planned, I met Miss Chi by the fountain, bribed two night-shift sandwichmen behind the performance hall, crawled with her into a thin cloth-covered square box, showed just our backsides to the entrance guard, and slipped out of the venue. Looking back now, I realize I’d been neatly set up as a pair of sticks at that very moment. This was no line from some morality play—‘blissfully unaware I marched to my doom,’ I tell you. No mere lamb to slaughter—not by half. For off I went to become sausage with such eager delight.

Once we left the exposition grounds, we found ourselves in what seemed like an extension of St. Louis itself—couldn't tell whether it lay west or east of the fairgrounds, I tell you. Beneath a sea of illumination, carriages and streetcars flowed in an unbroken flood through the city's depths, I tell you. Back then, mind you, even America hadn't seen anything like one-yen taxis yet, I tell you.

Miss Chi, walking ahead of me, stopped beneath a post at a dimly lit street corner about a block away, so I too stopped beside her and lit a rolled cigarette. Before long, a splendid carriage drawn by two white horses arrived and stopped before the post. Upon seeing this, Miss Chi abruptly stripped off her advertisement-covered clothes, flung them to the ground, then leapt into the carriage and beckoned. So I too hurriedly mimicked a woman and leapt into the carriage—the moment I did, Miss Chi, having lowered the screens on all sides, clamped onto my neck with a smooch... Heh heh... My apologies. This right here was indeed the main event… this smooch of hers was like a purple certification stamp declaring me fit for sausage material… I was utterly dazzled, I tell you. A sweet fragrance permeated to the very depths of my organs, I tell you. At that point, I couldn’t tell whether it was perfume or the scent of her skin. Moreover, in clear Japanese,

"Well... you actually came." And there she went. In an instant, all thoughts of past and future went flying off somewhere along with the hat rack—like a madman guzzling shōchū who’d come to gawk at a fire—utter chaos... When some time later the woman raised the screen and I came to my senses, I was rather startled by how frightfully fast that carriage was moving. Our carriage went swiftly overtaking others, so traffic officers in gold-braided uniforms approached again and again from ahead, raising their hands as if to halt us—but when the black-whiskered coachman in a silk hat riding our carriage slightly raised his whip in a signaling gesture, every last officer immediately spun around and marched off the other way.

No matter if we turned right or left, no matter how far we went, it was always like this, so I gradually grew more and more puzzled—though when I later heard the reason, it made perfect sense. That coachman was none other than the master—the top gang leader in all of St. Louis, this fearsome man they called Kant Deck, or so I later heard. Every last police officer in St. Louis was apparently one of this Deck’s underlings—such extravagance… And had I realized then that both Miss Chi, the Chinese girl riding with me, and the other Miss Fui were none other than this Kant Deck’s mistresses themselves, I might’ve been utterly overwhelmed on the spot. The Earth being round wasn’t even half the commotion, you see.

Even without that, I was already beginning to feel somewhat uneasy when the carriage came to a stop in front of a grand, brightly lit shop. There, Miss Chi planted another kiss on my grimy nape and led me by the hand into the shop—which turned out to be a large record store. In the store’s grand hall—where magnificent wreaths and photographs of what appeared to be trendy male and female singers lined all four walls—Western men and women leaned against benches arranged in a crosshatch pattern, feigning indifference as they listened to records played by clerks in frock coats.

Led by the woman through that wood-brick-lined passageway alongside it, when I passed through the door at the far end, I emerged into a narrow hallway barely wide enough for my shoulders. The corridor sloped downward ahead, its entire floor covered in black mats that muffled all footsteps as we seemingly descended toward the basement. Within it—turning right and left while passing through three or four doors—just as I thought we’d gone quite far down… the electric lights lining the ceiling abruptly went out, plunging us into utter darkness. That was my last glimpse of Miss Chi’s face… The next time I saw her was in the evening newspaper—a smiling visage in handcuffs—and after that, it was her profile in a photo newsreel alongside Deck as they received their death sentences, I tell you.

Of course, there was no way I could've known such things back then. Even God hadn't known... and with the woman having let go of my hand too... I was left utterly alone in pitch darkness... I was done for. Absolutely.

Even then, I still had some conceit left in me—quite admirable, I tell you. So the woman had played a trick on me... Alright... If that’s how she wants it, I’ll find my own way out... Groping forward like I was playing blind man’s bluff, I eventually passed through a door at the end of the hallway and found myself in a splendid room. When I saw the lights suddenly flicker on in ambush, it was as if twenty or thirty suns burst forth at once—this time, I nearly truly had my legs give out, I tell you. After all, it was a room wall-to-wall with mirrors, and the entire ceiling was lit up with floral lights, you see.

The world certainly has its share of splendid rooms, I thought. Had this been modern times, such rooms would've been commonplace in Ginza—I might not have been particularly surprised then. It was nothing more than a space crammed with gilded cabinets worthy of a dragon king's palace, chairs, tables, bouquets and wreaths—amidst perfume so thick and stifling it near choked my breath, there stood my wretched self alone. When I saw this pitiful figure reflected in the enormous mirror covering the entire opposite wall, I instinctively slapped a hand over my pocket. Sleeping with Miss Chi in such finery, I'd thought my purse might get lifted, you see. That I still carried traces of syphilis even then—quite remarkable indeed.

“Ahahaha. “You mustn’t worry about money… Mr. Harukichi… Ahahahaha…”

Startled by the sudden burst of loud laughter, I turned around to find a gentleman in evening attire—a man of about forty—emerging from behind the large orchid leaves at my back. When I saw that gentle smile, I felt certain it was a face I'd encountered somewhere before, but try as I might, I couldn't place it. Having failed to recognize this as the same coachman from the carriage I'd just ridden in—now sans his black sideburns—I heaved a sigh of relief while imagining him to be one of those generous tippers from my Taiwan Pavilion days, whereupon the gentleman extended his right hand and, while shaking mine with practiced ease, narrowed his eyes further and spoke. Moreover, his speech came in Japanese peppered with broken phrases.

“You… You must know well what kind of house this is. So let’s skip the tedious explanations, shall we? Let’s just discuss business, shall we? Please come this way.” He beckoned me toward the corner of the room where a gigantic silver vase stood—a human-sized vessel crammed with a mound of Ezo chrysanthemums that would’ve required four or five men to lift. Yet the gentleman shifted it aside effortlessly, revealing two or three worm-eaten-looking holes at the corner of the parquetry-patterned wooden wall behind. When he inserted a key from his watch chain into one hole, a clatter sounded as a wall panel measuring about two by two-and-a-half shaku swung open, exposing a shallow shelf partitioned into ten compartments at the rear. Listening to that Western gentleman’s broken Japanese interspersed with hand gestures, this is what it amounted to.

“I want you to make this secret shelf openable without using a lock.” “I’ll have all necessary materials and tools procured immediately for you.” “You’re the carpenter who made those mysterious Hakone woodwork magic boxes being sold next to the Taiwan Pavilion, aren’t you?” “So I want you to install that secret mechanism here exactly like those Hakone woodworks.” “Then teach only me how to open it, and I want you to return to Japan immediately.” “I’ll give you as much money as you want—”

he said. Western carpenters are such clumsy, lowly sorts—even if you showed them an example, they apparently can’t replicate delicate work like that Hakone woodwork. But right then, I got this bad feeling—somehow... I thought, 'This ain't no good place I've come to...' That premonition came just a hair too late, I tell you. Anyway… “What’s this shelf even for?” “If I don’t know what it’s for, I can’t make it.”

When I told him that... I tell you. That Westerner—for just a brief moment—bared his blue eyes and made a terrifying face, I tell you. But he immediately reverted to his usual gentle expression and began gesturing with his hands in that same charming broken Japanese as before. “This is a shelf for storing bags of jewels. “I’ve had this hobby of collecting gems from around the world for ages—it’s my greatest pleasure—so I’m asking you to do this job properly to ensure there’s no worry even if thieves break in.” “I’ll give you as much money as you want—a thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars.” “I can even throw in that girl for you, so please do take on this job.”

He began bowing his head obsequiously, his demeanor utterly at odds with his appearance, as he made his plea.

“Since I own villas all across America, should I take a liking to your work here, I’d like to commission you elsewhere as well.” “I can give you enough wages to sustain you for a lifetime.”

With his face bright red, he rubbed his hands together and bowed obsequiously. Kant Deck had apparently been carefully studying and devising a way to win me over from the very beginning, you see. He seemed to think that if you gave money and bowed your head to a capable Japanese, they’d fall right into your hands—but this turned out to be an unfortunate miscalculation. Even “wan kapu, tensensu” depends on the time and circumstances, you see. Unlike the Chinese, we Japanese have this thing called a sore spot, you see.

As I listened to Deck’s words, it suddenly hit me. So Miss Chi’s sweet talk was all a sham—this Westerner had used her as bait to drag me here, hadn’t he? That bastard—he took me for a fool! Tried to hook me with a woman to make me his little accomplice in some thieving contraption work! When I thought it through—damn, I’d stumbled into some outrageous mess! Moreover, now that I’d gotten in this deep, there was no way I’d make it back to Japan alive… But instead of my legs giving out in terror when this realization struck, my mind snapped into sharp focus.

...It's a strange quirk of mine—when I'm patient, I can wait endlessly, but once something sets me off in a flash, everything after that becomes recklessly hasty... What a damn fool of a Japanese I am. Blinded by gold and pistols—you think I can help some Western bandits and thieves? "Do you think I don't know your 'fools and lunatics' game?" I barked, suddenly grappling that Westerner and trying to throw him with a hip toss. This from someone with second-degree judo skills, mind you.

Huh. That was quite the upward glance, I tell you. That part, though. But after that, I was just too damn spineless... Looking back now, it’s a wonder I wasn’t killed back then…… Probably, if he could’ve managed it, he meant to intimidate me into compliance and make me craft that shelf’s hidden mechanism. ……He must’ve thought I was Japan’s top craftsman. If he let this guy slip away, he’d never get workmanship like this again… Must’ve been scheming something that crooked, the scoundrel. When I think back on it now, it chills me to the bone.

The moment I thought I’d grappled him, Kant Deck had already seized both my arms in a firm grip. And the strength of his fingers was nothing short of incredible. With the sensation of my arm bones being shattered into pieces, my entire body went numb. I was made to realize I stood no chance whatsoever. After all, this was Kant Deck—one of America’s most notorious figures, said to have torn off handcuffs and escaped—so my second-degree judo stood no chance whatsoever.

Deck bastard kept gripping my arms, not a single muscle twitching in his face as he grinned and spoke.

“You. “There’s no need for indignation.” “I am Kant Deck.” “Please take your time.” “I’ll show you something interesting…” With that, he spun me around like a revolving chair, effortlessly hoisted me up, and carried me out through the side door. “No good! No good! “I’ve got a promise—gotta be standin’ out front of the Taiwan Pavilion again tomorrow hollerin’ my lungs out! “Let me go! Let me go!”

I thrashed about wildly, but it was all for nothing. Whether it was the very next room or the one after that—I can’t recall—but when they carried me into a small, crude room, they made me peer through a single-pane window set in its rough concrete wall into the chamber beyond. Just like a baby being made to pee in that Amby style, you see… I stopped struggling and found myself staring blankly, utterly entranced, I tell you. The state of that room across the way was so utterly atrocious that I found myself completely dumbfounded, I tell you.

Heh. This is somehow... rather difficult to speak of here... particularly before you two. Heh heh heh heh heh.... It's nothing at all. Just scum spawned in a puddle - a measly ladleful.

They were all completely naked people—my mouth hung open in disbelief and wouldn’t shut. It was a rather spacious room, I tell you. Between potted palms, olive trees, and rubber plants—where benches, mats, cushions, and furs lay heaped like tidal waves—a squirming mass of vermin in sickly sweet getups writhed over and under each other, so I couldn’t possibly think them human. This chaos couldn’t hold a candle to dumping loaches into a goldfish bowl.

It was strange, you see. Even while being subjected to such sights, not a single lewd thought arose in me, I tell you. Even now when I think back on it, that particular feeling from that time—I still can't make sense of it, I tell you. I was probably watching with the mindset that this would be my keepsake for the road to hell... Somehow it all looked utterly shameful and ridiculous, turning my stomach while cold shivers ran down my sides and this uncontrollable rage welled up—but then that bastard Kant Deck pressed his mouth right against my ear and hissed.

“If you want to go there, do your work.”

I began thrashing about again with every ounce of desperate frenzy I could muster. The room sweltered unbearably, leaving me drenched in sweat—but pinned by this mountain of a man’s strength like a grasshopper caught in some lowlife’s child-grip... If I so much as twitched wrong, my limbs felt ready to tear clean off.

“Then I’ll show you something even more interesting.”

With that, he now opened a low door opposite the small window and descended along an iron ladder hanging there into a strangely dazzling wide room. It was only after returning to Japan and going to work at Waseda University that I finally understood—that had been what they call a mercury vapor lamp. In the far corner of the room, there was only a single bright electric light of a strange color—like an arc lamp—lit there, and when viewed under that light, everything from Kant Deck’s complexion to the back of my own hand appeared a leaden gray, exactly like that of a corpse. Even without that, I was already completely drained of both energy and spirit after thrashing about like a madman earlier, so as I dangled from Kant Deck’s single hand like a corpse—limbs hanging limp—and looked around, it could only be thought of as some factory’s basement. With its concrete ceiling and floorspace so low it felt like one’s head would get stuck, it was a sprawling room—and on the damp, clammy beaten-earth floor, not a single desk, chair, or scrap of debris was scattered. Just beneath the mercury vapor lamp in the far corner sat a large mortar-like object made of marble, and inside it, an iron rod jutting down from the ceiling—motor-driven—was grinding away relentlessly. In other words, it was a large, custom-made meat grinder. It was a sausage-making machine I had seen at the exposition.

But being completely worn out and having lost all power to think, what that meant remained utterly beyond my grasp. ...Hmm... Could it be that the phonograph shop’s basement had become a sausage factory? I was dragged scraping across the concrete floor to that mortar-like structure, yet felt neither fear nor anything else. But when Kant Deck seized my head and forced me to peer into that mortar, I couldn’t help shuddering, my limbs curling tight. The mortar was bottomless, of course—and above its gaping hole loomed an obscenely large meat grinder’s jagged spiral, glinting like wolf fangs as it ground with a metallic growl. Once you fell through, that’d be the end—absolutely everything. Once your body got mangled from crown to heel, no matter how holy a sutra they chanted for you, you’d never find salvation.

“You… Do you like going into this? Will you work or not?”

Even someone like me... No, even without being 'someone like me,' anyone would falter there. No matter how much I tried to muster courage... I don't like this... my whole body turned to concrete and started clattering with tremors—there was nothing to be done about it. You may laugh, but go to that place and see for yourself. By no means could one remain composed in such circumstances. To this day I can't remember what I'd been thinking—I must have been on the very brink of losing consciousness. The only thing burned into my eye was that leaden mercury vapor lamp's hateful glare... Truly that gloomy clammy light alone seeped into my marrow and filled me with terror. If neon signs are paradise's light then mercury lamps must be hell's own glow. Even living humans looked like corpses under that illumination. Even now when I recall it I shudder through and through.

At that moment, Kant Deck must have given some signal. From the dimly lit area far behind, a door creaked open, and a large man in a blue workman’s jacket, his face covered in a thick beard, emerged slowly pushing a mine cart. It was only then that I noticed—a narrow-gauge track had been laid from the entrance all the way to the meat grinder... When the mine cart being pushed by the workman’s jacket-clad man came to a stop right before our eyes, Kant Deck removed the white cloth covering what lay atop it. And then, when I instinctively cried “Agh!” and tried to flee, he grabbed me in a firm embrace.

It was the completely naked corpse of a young woman. Moreover, what looked like blood—thickly smeared from under her nose down to between her breasts, as if she’d bitten through her small lower lip with her front teeth—appeared under the mercury vapor lamp like a strangely darkened beard. What’s more, her right hand seemed to be gripping something precious—clenched so tightly that her left hand covered it from above and pressed it firmly against her chest—a posture that appeared unbearably unsettling. Yet the way her black hair was cut straight across the front made it impossible to mistake her for a Westerner. There’s no doubt she was either Chinese or Japanese…

As I thought this, the giant in the blue workman’s jacket—prompted by Kant Deck’s chin gesture—immediately nodded once, rolled up his sleeves, and thrust out two hairy arms thick as my thighs. With those bear-like hands, he effortlessly untied the woman’s hands and pried open her tightly clenched right fist, revealing several folded sheets of pink Chinese stationery from the Taiwan Pavilion that I recognized. Kant Deck took the unfolded stationery and dangled it before my nose while grinning once more. With an expression like one soothing an infant, he peered into my face, you see.

It was a splendid Japanese text written with brush and ink. It had likely been written using Mr. Fujimura’s inkstone box from the Taiwan Pavilion office. The characters were as elegant as those found in the classical Hyakunin Isshu anthology. “You must never go out with Chi-chan. Chi-chan is Chinese. She works for the American gang. I am that pitiable Japanese woman who became ensnared in the gang alongside Chi-chan. Please inform my parents in Japan of what has become of me.”

Born in Amakusa Saura

"Master Harukichi, From Nakata Fujiko"

When I realized that corpse was Miss Fui’s, I think I tried to lunge forward while shouting something. An unprecedented strength surged through me, nearly allowing me to shake Deck off, but he—standing face-to-face with me—seized my left wrist in an iron grip and grinned slyly once more.

“Do you understand?” “Will you work?” “What the—”

I think I shouted something like that. Suddenly, an unexpected strength surged through me—I managed to shake off Deck’s iron-vise grip and tried to leap at him like a ball of fire, but I wasn’t fast enough. From behind, the man in the workman’s jacket grabbed me in a suffocating grip. Then, like someone discarding a stray pup, I was effortlessly tossed into the arms of Deck’s tail-coated figure.

Deck, having caught me, bundled my thrashing hands and clawing feet from behind and clamped down tightly. Then, after he uttered something in English—two or three words—the hairy workman’s jacket-clad man hoisted the woman’s body from the minecart and tossed it effortlessly into the nearby meat grinder. …… Huh.

The terrifying voice that came from the meat grinder in that moment—I knew I would never forget it as long as I lived. Miss Fui had still been alive. Most likely, for betraying her gang comrades to save a Japanese man like me, she’d been tortured into unconsciousness by Deck’s men. It seemed I’d lost consciousness right then and there as well.

“Jya-pan, gabamen, fuorumosa, uuronchi, wankapu, tensensu.” *kaminkamin*”

Thinking I heard someone calling from somewhere, I fluttered my eyes open only to realize I'd been thrown onto a narrow floor littered with straw bundles in what looked like a concrete stable-like structure. When I crawled over to peek into the dirty bucket placed before the corner door, inside lay lumps of bread, water, and a milk bottle tossed on top of a mess of potatoes and meat stew... In other words—they still hadn't meant to kill me yet, I suppose. Taking advantage of the situation, they must've been planning to drag me into their gang and put me to work, I reckon.

However, I felt neither happiness nor sadness at having survived—nothing at all. Looking back now, I must say my head was completely haywire at the time. It might have been another episode of my earth roundness epilepsy, I must say. Unaware of where I was or what was happening to me, I kept uttering those delirious words exactly as they’d seemingly continued since before my eyes had even opened.

“Jya-pan, gabamen, fuorumosa, uuronchi, wankapu, tensensu.” *kaminkamin*”

It seems I kept shouting this over and over at the top of my lungs—habits truly are terrifying things.

However, thanks to this prayer chant, I managed to return safely to Japan like this, so human fate is a mysterious thing through and through... Huh...

At the Exposition, there was apparently a great commotion. Since me and two women had gone missing under suspicious circumstances, they apparently made a fuss by contacting the police or whatnot, but there was no clue to be found. The pitiable one was Mr. Fujimura—apparently they made him wear ceremonial dress and stand before the Taiwan Pavilion in my place, forced to perform “wankapu, tensensu” with Old Nostalgia until they could find a replacement. While doing this for two or three days, his back pocket filled with jangling silver coins, which was all well and good, but his voice became completely hoarse until he couldn’t use the telephone anymore… No wonder, really. They’d never sung any lumbermen’s chants or such before, you see. On top of that, even while shouting, they apparently worried themselves sick, you see. ……Since they probably thought I’d kidnapped the two women, the Taiwan Pavilion nearly ended up having to pay damages to the very Chinese restaurant that had taken care of us… But since a carpenter like me—this Harukichi fellow—isn’t some grand criminal mastermind, Mr. Fujimura apparently worked tirelessly to sort things out.

Before long, there was talk about St. Louis’s what’s-it-called—a ghost appearing late at night on the seventh-floor rooftop of a hotel along Meinuki Street. The rumor that it was the missing customer-caller man from the Taiwan Pavilion—the one featured in the Dōyara Newspaper—began circulating among the hotel guests. It’s a ridiculous ghost story, but… even though Harukichi was still properly alive, there shouldn’t have been any ghostly apparition—but Westerners, you see, are said to absolutely adore such tales… they’ve got this habit of turning the most trivial things into ghost stories. And so that rumor began spreading from nowhere to everywhere, yet luckily ended up reaching Mr. Fujimura’s ears before it could get to the gang’s.

“You… have you heard about that hotel’s ghost story…?”

“No.” “I haven’t heard it yet.” “Do tell me.” “It began about a week ago.” “Around two in the morning… when the streetcars stop running, a Japanese ghost wearing a frock coat appears by the flagpole in the middle of that hotel’s rooftop garden.” “Look—right over there, a young smart-looking man and a bald fellow with a red nose are standing, you see?” “They say the ghost appears in exactly that form and says exactly those things.” “Oh, how scary… Really…”

“It’s true, I tell you… That’s the missing person from the newspaper… Look… When you came here long ago, he was standing right there, remember?” “They say it looks exactly like that man called Mr. Harukichi.” “My… The hotel must be having trouble because of this, I suppose.” “But it's actually the opposite.” “Thanks to that, while not a single soul goes to the rooftop garden anymore, they say that hotel is now packed with people coming to hear the voice.” “They say the police still don’t know about it yet, but everyone’s claiming that Japanese man’s disappearance must be some first-rate publicity stunt cooked up between that hotel and the Taiwan Pavilion.”

“Shh… I can hear it now. To the Japanese…” “Oh nonsense! They don’t understand a lick of English—they’re just loyal slaves repeating whatever they’ve memorized...”

Mr. Fujimura, who happened to overhear this conversation at a table near the entrance, counted on his fingers and found that it had been exactly eight days since I went missing. Mr. Fujimura, being well-versed in Western matters, must have immediately put two and two together. Immediately that same evening, he stayed at the hotel and sneaked up to the rooftop garden around two o'clock in the morning to investigate, where there was a pitifully faint, faint voice of mine, “Jya-paaan.” ga-baaanmento oo. fuorumosaaa aa. Uu... ron... chiiiiii. Wankapuu… U. “teenseeensuu——…”

apparently he was continuing to do so.

There, with his heart pounding, Mr. Fujimura crept forward on stealthy steps toward where the voice seemed to be coming from—only to find that the owner of said voice was nowhere to be found in the rooftop garden. It became clear—apparently—that what was being heard came from a pitch-dark small window in the corner of the seventh floor of the May Flower Building across the way, growing more distinct as the night deepened. However, Mr. Fujimura, well-versed in American affairs, did not panic in the least. Putting on an innocent face, he returned to the Taiwan Pavilion the next morning and immediately contacted the ambassador in Washington to request assistance from a skilled New York police officer named Plaug—or so the story goes.

It so happened that this police officer named Plaug had been desperately searching for the gang's hideout. He promptly pulled strings at New York's police headquarters to borrow veteran detectives and patrolmen, then stormed into St. Louis. Keeping local authorities in the dark, they surveilled the May Flower Building and found everyone coming and going was a disguised ex-convict. Having finally pinpointed their target, Plaug's squad of about twenty men deployed with leakproof coordination. In less time than it takes to blink, they swept through every floor of the May Flower Building from basement to seventh story. Both sides apparently sustained injuries and deaths, creating wartime-level chaos for a spell—though I knew nothing about it at the time. After being hauled out and confined to a bed at St. Louis Municipal Hospital, they say he kept right on chanting "wankapu, tensensu" without missing a beat.

……By the way, there was still more to the story. What followed was where things turned truly horrifying.

By the time I was finally restored to my senses and discharged from the hospital—thanks to every injection and nourishing substance they could muster—it was already late autumn, the eucalyptus leaves having long since scattered, and the Exposition had ended ages past. Upon being discharged from the hospital, I was immediately summoned by the police and underwent a mere formality of an interrogation with an interpreter present. After receiving travel funds from the consul, I departed from San Francisco to return to Japan—but this story concerns what happened during that journey. It was indeed a clear, sunny morning, about ten days after we had set sail. Because the voyage was so dreadfully boring, even after waking up, I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. I stayed right there in my special third-class berth, stretching my legs out straight and letting out a big "Aaah" of a yawn, when abruptly I remembered the small paper-wrapped package I'd received as a souvenir from someone at the consulate whom I'd befriended in San Francisco. Wondering what it could be, I took out the paper-wrapped package from the basket under my berth and opened it—and what do you know? It was a flat sausage tin...

Thinking I’d hit the jackpot with this find, I leapt up, bought a 52-cent Japanese beer from the dining hall, and sitting cross-legged on my berth, opened the tin’s lid. I began thinly slicing the appetizing sausage’s side with my pocketknife when something caught on the blade. ……Hmm…… Thinking it strange, I held the knife blade up to the dim window light and saw that it was a black woman’s hair…… I was startled. Still thinking it couldn’t be possible, when I took a closer look at the freshly cut surface of the sausage, I noticed what appeared to be a white triangular object lodged between the pale pink meat. Hmm, I wondered while poking it out—and what do you think that thing turned out to be? It was a roughly triangular scrap of pale pink paper... Having been wedged between the red meat for so long, it had become soggy and bloated, so its original color was anyone’s guess. As for the paper quality—whether it was China-made letter paper or something else—I couldn’t tell for sure. Still, there was no mistaking that this paper had been lodged in the same spot as that black hair…

Even so, "Surely not..." I thought, but I couldn't help feeling terribly strange. As I pondered whether Miss Fui—who’d been in love with me—had become a sausage in my place and followed me all this way… Well, it was no longer any state for beer snacks. My head got all jumbled up like sausage filling. I felt like I was steadily coming to understand the round world’s logic… Really… Hah….

...Heh... Thank you ever so much, Madam... for all your generous hospitality... I must now take my leave.